Workers visited this night resort from different Post Office Boxes, and allegedly some of them had worked on the synthesis of chemical agents and on their military applications. I listened to their horror stories and came to the conclusion that they were engaged in a suicidal business. How ironic it was that I willingly agreed to work in this kind of nightmare. I was strongly motivated by the salary, so I could have my own place to live in.
Next, I went to explain the reason for my forthcoming departure to my bosses at VNIIKANeftGas. It was bizarre, but my explanation threw the Secretary of the Party Committee into a rage. He refused to approve my application for withdrawal, and accused me of being egotistical. I was forced to work with an old party hack, a lathe operator.
This man tried to change my mind over the course of several hours, explaining that earnings appeared to be a completely trivial motivation for a party member. In his opinion, the fulfillment of your duty to the party was the most important thing. Of course, it was the same Party Committee at my job, which determined what my “duty” was. This old hand and the “party line” did not succeed in changing my mind, because I was pretty sure I could not continue living in a one-room apartment with my ex-wife. Then, I still had to suffer through another committee meeting of the Party Committee, which wanted to “dress down” their obstinate comrade.
I was given a reprimand, but it was really nothing more than a private assault on me. I was hoping that these people would not decide to give me a “party penalty”. Where could I disappear to if they wanted to do this? How would I be able to “continue to fulfill the party line” as they expected, if they didn’t sign off on my withdrawal?
I decided to “shoot the bank”. On the advice of a friend who was a lawyer, I refused to go to work. I had the right to do that under the Soviet Labor Code; moreover, the administration of VNIIKANeftGas was required to pay me in full for my absence from work. Apparently, the demagogic Soviet system, in order to prove the omnipotence of the working class, had written some unexpected idiosyncrasies into the law. Then along came a joker – a daredevil, who threw down a challenge, and established a precedent in the area of private issues.
I openly gave notice to the Party Committee and to the director of the institute that I might utilize this law. “Ah, does this mean you want to live by the law, and not by the rules of the party of Lenin, like a lawyer?” my educator, the lathe operator asked me indignantly. This conversation was already becoming more dangerous, and I barely managed to ignore his provocation.
Several days later, I set out to visit the regional magistrate, where an employee drew me aside to explain the essence of the problem. Finally a telephone call was made in my presence, and this resolved the whole problem in a flash. I was free to leave my job.
In the summer of 1965 I started at my new job by filling out specialized forms with lots of questions, including the following: “Where do your parents live, and if they have died, where were they buried?” Another one was: “Where do the brothers and sisters of the person filling out this questionnaire live, and where do they work?” The longer your list of relatives, the more time was required to start your real job because the Chekists have to spend more time to check everything out.
The purpose of the questionnaire was to grant a security clearance with access to classified documents, in exchange for signing an obligatory pledge to keep the secrets which would be entrusted to you in your job. It was necessary to renew this clearance every 5 years. You had to go through the same process all over again. Since no one made any notes when they filled out the questionnaire the first time, everyone had to be very careful not to allow any discrepancies to appear five years later, when filling out the new questionnaire. It’s entirely possible all the questionnaires were fully checked out by officials, since the original verification process took about 3 months.
Then I was given instructions about my duties as a secret holder. I was entirely prohibited from having any contacts with foreigners, from making any trips abroad, and from visiting any restaurants, exhibitions, museums, libraries etc. without a special permit from the Second Department.
I heard nothing from my future employer until after this process had run its course. Then they contacted me to let me know that I could go to a doctor for a medical checkup, to see if I met the requirements of the Post Office Box – the place of my future employment. The checkup was also complicated, with numerous analyses, and these procedures took about 2 weeks. My health turned out to be good enough.
And so, on November 30th 1965, I finally passed through the militarized guard post into the enterprise known as Post Office Box 702 for the first time. From there I went to the Analytical Department, which was in the main laboratory building (GLK), where access was guarded in the same way, and I had to show my pass once more.
On the way there, I was shaken by the appalling view of dirty old one-story brick buildings. On the left side of the path, pilot plants which had been constructed in the 19th century or earlier littered a large part of the territory occupied by the Post Office Box (which later became known as GOSNIIOKhT – pronounced ghos-nee-okht). Smoggy white clouds puffed up over dirty roofs of these buildings covered by black bitumen, and there was a whistling sound from the escape of compressed air of some unknown gas from numerous exhaust pipes. This gave it all a dangerous and oppressive aura you couldn’t shake off.
A revolting smell was leaking from a few open doors and broken windows. You could see people dressed in dirty jumpsuits with white skull caps on their heads inside these rooms and near the doors. From that first time until the last days of my residency at GOSNIIOKhT, I was never able to shake off the unpleasant sensation created by these buildings, which were already half destroyed by time. (Later I heard that some new, but terrible and featureless buildings were built in place of some of them).
The new nine-story administration building, which faces onto the Highway of Enthusiasts, is of necessity a modern architectural devil, but it only covered up the repulsive view of the decrepit ghost structures. All of those which remain standing were once jailhouses for political prisoners or sharashka.[10] Before the Second World War and later there was a factory there for the production of mustard gas. Eyewitness accounts document that in October 1941, the staff buried several metric tons of mustard gas in trenches near what is now the main laboratory building (the GLK), as German troops were approaching Moscow. No steps were taken to destroy or degrade the agent. It was simply dumped untreated into the ground.
The GLK is a three-story brick structure built in 1961. The building extends so that it is butts up to the tramway tracks, and trains are constantly rumbling by, creating a small but audible noise in the building and vibrations, which are a nuisance for those working with highly sensitive physical chemical instruments.
On the short end, the GLK is connected with another old three-story building, by a second story bridge which then turns sharply left and connects to yet another horrible old three-story building. This third building looks out on the Highway of Enthusiasts, and almost connects by cast iron rails with part of a bridge that was built across the rail line, shortly after World War II by German prisoners of war. From this bridge it is possible to get a good view of a large part of the GOSNIIOKhT territory, with its buildings. Numerous ventilation pipes are sprouting out of the roofs, direct evidence that a strong ventilation system is working in these buildings – the specters of the work of a chemical laboratory.
10
The term “sharashka”was first introduced by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn,
The renowned scientists Rudolf Udris, Peter Sergeev, Michael Nemtsov, and Boris Kruzhalov, who were the first to develop the hydro peroxide process for producing phenol and acetone in 1946, were working in such a chemical